Lightly raced Lucille Ball looks to stay perfect in Interborough
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When 4-year-old filly Lucille Ball entered the gate at Aqueduct for her long-awaited return Jan. 2, she was even a mystery to her trainer. Chris Englehart didn’t know what to expect from her off a 14-month layoff, leaving him all the more flummoxed when she kicked clear to win an $83,000 allowance by 10 1/4 lengths with a 103 Beyer Speed Figure.
“I was hoping she could win,” Englehart said. “But when they’re off that long and had double [knee] surgery, you can’t expect that. It was a nice surprise.”
Englehart might have been momentarily floored by his filly, but he knows what to do with her now. Undefeated and unchallenged in two career starts, Lucille Ball will make her stakes debut as the likely favorite in the $135,000 Interborough Stakes for fillies and mares aged 4 and older on Saturday at Aqueduct.
After a pair of victories at 6 1/2 furlongs more than a year apart, the filly will stretch out to seven furlongs on a three-week turnaround. She will be the least experienced by far in the field of eight fillies and mares, but her speed may prove out with Kendrick Carmouche aboard.
“I don’t think she has to be in front, but if she is, that’s not a bad thing,” Englehart said.
Englehart approached Lucille Ball’s last start without expectations and will handle her stakes debut along similar lines. He didn’t rule out the idea that her current form might not be sustainable, but if regression is coming, it certainly has not been showing in the morning.
“She’s training real well, but that doesn’t always tell the picture,” Englehart said. “Sometimes, they won’t run if you run them back too quick. Even if they’re training good, they don’t show up, but hopefully that won’t be the case with her. She’s still going good.”
Mega Mil, a front-running sprinter in all seven of her career starts, will break from the rail and could possibly force Lucille Ball into a stalking position. The John Servis trainee finished second in the $75,000 Cornucopia at Parx Racing before shipping to Aqueduct for a gate-to-wire allowance victory in December.
Scalable, winner of the Interborough last year, did not run again for eight months after that stakes victory, returning in September for Todd Pletcher. On Dec. 13, she was a distant runner-up in the $150,000 Go for Wand, finishing ahead of Just Katherine, Zadorsky, and Stonewall Star. She will meet all three again Saturday.
Trainer Linda Rice entered two 5-year-old mares in the Interborough, both fresh faces cutting back from route distances. Curlin’s Girl will try her first stakes on dirt after winning two Aqueduct allowances late in her 2025 campaign.
“She wasn’t competing well enough on the turf, and I thought that she might like the synthetic” at Presque Isle, Rice said of Curlin’s Girl. “But ironically, when we brought her back here, she’s performed even better on the dirt.”
Rice’s other mare, Tipple, last ran fourth in the $150,000 Turnback the Alarm in November.
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